The Alcove was a lounge, coffee shop and bar that actually served minors under the table. It was fancy compared to the other shops in town complete with lounge chairs, loveseats and the most comfortable seats Katharine had ever sat in. She and Molli went to The Alcove when it first opened, before they knew it was a bar that served minors. The soft furniture and living room feel, including a crystal chandelier that hung above the bar, impressed them.
The clientele was also appealing as the most popular kids at Carnegie frequented The Alcove. However, the coffee could not hold a candle to the coffee served at Murphy’s Café so the girls returned to their former hang out and remained loyal while others did not.
Katharine sat anxiously in the empty Café, staring at the cat clock that hung on the wall in front of her Adeline had purchased the black and white cat clock while she was traveling through Atlanta a few years ago. It always kind of freaked Katharine out the way it meowed on the hour every hour.
Molli was late as usual, a trait that one either loved or hated about her Katharine was just sort of used to it. Besides she was already sipping her caramel latte, which tasted like Heaven in a cup, so she wasn’t too concerned about having to wait for her friend to arrive.
With every sip of the liquid euphoria Katharine made a satisfied sound, something people did quite often at Murphy’s. Ash expects me to leave this? Katharine laughed at her own thoughts, as if leaving coffee were worse than the idea of leaving her friends and family.
“Are you really going to do this?” A familiar and disappointed voice came from behind Katharine.
Katharine, who had just placed the mug to her lips and taken in a sip of coffee, spit the coffee out of her mouth spraying it outward like an out of control sprinkler.
Stunned, though she shouldn’t have been by this point, she spun rapidly in her chair and gave Ash, who was sitting with his feet folded and straight out on an empty chair at the table behind her, a terrible look. If she could have burned into someone with her eyes Ash would have been turned into dust.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” Katharine was forceful and unforgiving.
“I told you that telling anyone the truth would only put them in danger. Do you care so little about your friend that you’d put her life at risk just so you didn’t have to keep secrets?” Ash replied, placing his feet on the ground and leaning in Katharine’s direction. The sparkle in his eyes was barely visible under the dim lighting of the café. Good, now I can continue to enjoy my disdain for him without his pretty eyes distracting me.
“You’re like a leech sucking all the joy out of my life,” Katharine snapped. “How did you know where I was?”
Ash chuckled as if Katharine’s question was so stupid he couldn’t even fathom the fact that she had just asked it. He opened his mouth to speak but before the words had the chance to leave his lips Molli threw her purse on the table nearly knocking Katharine’s latte in her lap. The table wobbled back and forth a few times before settling back into a stable position. Katharine gripped her coffee to make sure none of it spilled as the table settled.
“Hey who is the hottie you were just talking to?” Molli asked with a content smile.
“Just some idiot who got lost on his way out of town,” Katharine said loud enough for Ash to hear.
“That’s a shame, he is gorgeous,” Molli said again peering around Katharine to gawk at Ash a bit longer. He smiled and waved sarcastically before standing and walking toward the back of the café, seemingly towards the restroom. “I am going to get a coffee, do you want anything?”
Katharine raised her latte signaling that she was already satisfied with the drink she had. As Molli approached the counter Katharine peered over to where Ash had been sitting and saw that the chair he once occupied was still empty and that he hadn’t come back.
She was relieved to see he was gone but wasn’t sure just how far he went. Somehow she didn’t think he had left and wouldn’t come and interrupt her just as she was about to tell Molli all that she had learned about what was really going on in the world.
“Oh my God did you see who they have performing at open mic night this week? Kyle Francis! We have to come!” Molli ran back to the table with a slight skip in her step. Her enthusiasm remained written all over her face as she placed her blue and pink polka dotted coffee mug on the table next to her purse, spilling drops of coffee onto the edge of the round table.
Kyle Francis was Meadowbrook’s own celebrity. He was just coming off a tour of the Midwest and would be returning to where he first started, Murphy’s. Kyle’s mediocre success was the most exciting thing to happen to Meadowbrook in a long time, which wasn’t saying a lot.
“Sure,” Katharine said uncomfortably. She couldn’t make plans for Friday night because she didn’t know where she would be tomorrow let alone Friday. After all who knew what Ash had planned for her or when he would simply force her to leave with him.
“So what’s this big news you have to tell me?” Molli asked in between sips of her coffee.
This was it, now or never. Katharine was either about to give her best friend yet another lie or she was about to tell her the truth and turn Molli’s world upside down. She looked up at the cat clock once more; only five minutes had passed since she last looked.
She was convinced that she had been sitting there for hours. Her mind was racing. Memories of the night she met Ash and everything she had learned. She wondered what she would have been doing at that moment if she’d never met Ash. In all likelihood she would still be sitting at Murphy’s with Molli but she doubted she would be sharing some incredibly private information with her.
She envisioned how things would go if she just blurted out the truth. She saw Molli throwing her hot coffee at her and calling her a liar and a terrible friend. Then there was the other version of how things might go; she saw Molli promising to help Katharine in any way she could. However, she hadn’t fully committed to telling Molli the truth, not just yet. This allowed her to see another option where she once again lied, a version of the story she knew would make Ash happiest.
This wasn’t about Ash though; this was about what would be best for Katharine and the rest of her life. Molli had been her confidant for as long as she knew and if she couldn’t trust her best friend then she couldn’t trust anyone.
“Remember three weeks ago when I decided to go to the library to study after hours?” “Yeah,” Molli said. If she were a cat her ears would have perked up as if she heard a can of tuna being opened.
“Something happened to me that night. Mol; what I am about to tell you is going to change everything,” Katharine said uneasily.
Katharine inched herself up in her chair, took one last sip of her latte, inhaled deeply and began to tell her story. This was it, she was going with the truth, and there was no going back. She began to tell Molli the events that unfolded the night she was attacked at the Quarry.
“Geezus,” Molli said taking a sip of her drink after Katharine had finished speaking. “How did you escape?” She seemed to believe what Katharine had been saying so far; this gave Katharine the strength to tell Molli the really important part. “Well you remember the guy that was sitting at the next table when you walked in?”
“The hottie?” Molli said blushing.
“Yeah that hottie. Well his name is Ash and he saved my life,” Katharine said but before she got another word out Ash came rushing toward them with his red dagger straight out in front of him.
He was screaming and waving his arms rapidly, the dagger rushing back and forth with the movement of his arms. “Katharine, get out of here!” But before Katharine could process what was going on something jumped her from behind and knocked her to the ground.
She couldn’t move or see but she heard a lot of breaking, slicing and banging sounds but loudest of all in her ears she heard Molli screaming. The screams were loud and filled with fear. Katharine was sure she was hearing her best friend dying as she lay unable to do anything about it
.
A familiar feeling rushed over her. She was pinned down by something that reeked something that smelled terrible as it breathed heavily on top of her. She tried to scream but it closed its cold hand around her throat preventing any sound from coming out.
Its hands were as cold as ice but the tighter it wrapped around Katharine’s neck the warmer they got. Her neck felt like it was burning in a fire and being frozen inside a freezer. Like the thing that attacked her in the Quarry it had short sharp teeth that it used to pierce into her skin. She kicked and thrashed trying to break free but it sliced at her with its claws sending searing pain through her entire body, it was like acid poured onto her skin.
As she felt her heart giving way to the strain of what the Descended had done it winced in pain and released its grip ever so slightly. Something or someone was on top of it, stabbing at it repeatedly. Katharine picked her head up weakly to see what it was and saw Ash riding the Descended like a cowboy would ride a bull, then the world went dark.
3
TRACKER
“Katharine! Katharine can you hear me?” Ash said, as his voice faded into existence. “I think you’ve had enough sleep now, it’s been twenty-four hours. No one needs this much beauty rest.”
Katharine slowly opened her eyes to a foggy haze of blurred figures and bright spots dancing aimlessly across her pupils. Am I dead? A familiar beeping sound brought her back to reality. The sound was the same as she had heard when she woke up at Meadowbrook Medical a few years earlier when she had had her appendix removed.
The room was a dull-drum of grey and white coloring. The walls were plastered with old white paint that showed signs of aging. White wires hung from ancient medical machines that connected to parts of her body. She was in a hospital; more than that, she wasn’t dead.
In a moment of clarity her vision shot back into focus like an autofocus on a digital camera and she could see Ash standing next to her bed. His eyes sparkled even in the dull lighting from the dreary hospital lighting. His face was bruised and he had a large cut, like he’d been sliced with a sharp knife, in a straight line down his right cheek.
His clothes were torn and covered in blood. The blood was a frightening mixture of human and Descended. The yellow ooze from the Descended found a comfortable home on the top corner of his shirt and made its way down till it reached the red patch of blood that had come off Katharine when Ash lifted her motionless body off the floor of Murphy’s Café.
Suddenly Katharine sat up in a panic.
“Did you call my parents?” Katharine asked. They would want to know that their only daughter had been injured and was lying in a hospital bed but that she was alive.
“No,” Ash said without hesitation.
“Why? They are my parents and they need to know I am okay,” Katharine insisted.
Ash folded his arms across his chest and stared at Katharine as if he were waiting for her to stop panicking before he spoke again. She calmed down and waited for him to explain why he had kept the people who gave her life in the dark.
“If I told your parents about where you were or what happened to you I would be putting them in danger. I figured you would want to keep them safe so I made a judgment call to keep them out of the loop. Now you tell me, did I do the right thing or would you like me to put them in harms way like you did Molli?” Ash asked in an assured manner.
Katharine knew he did the right thing. She couldn’t imagine what she would do if anything happened to her parents because of her. If they were hurt it would all be her fault and she would never be able to forgive herself.
“But wouldn’t the nurse or doctors have called them once I was brought in?”
“They were about to but I told them that your parents were out of the country. It is amazing how gullible the nurses here are,” Ash chuckled.
There it was again, that damn cocky smile that Ash loved wearing. The smile that made Katharine’s blood boil. She was so tired of seeing it and so tired of hearing Ash praise himself. I wish I could slap that smile right off his face. As she focused on her disdain for Ash’s personality and facial expressions she remembered hearing Molli screaming next to her as they were attacked. She began to sweat and shake.
“Oh God, Molli! Where is Molli? Is she de…” Katharine’s panic took over and she began to sob. Ash warned her and now because she couldn’t bear to be alone with her new reality, her best friend was dead.
“I’m right here Kat,” Molli said, stepping out from behind Ash.
She was wearing a different outfit than what Katharine remembered when she was attacked. She was wearing a thin white dress with two clear straps keeping the dress in place on her shoulders. Katharine remembered Molli screaming and saw a lot of blood, but she looked completely unharmed. In fact, she looked as if she hadn’t been weathered at all.
Her hair was down and seemed fuller than it had been just hours ago. Had she gotten extensions while I was unconscious? But there was something even stranger about the way Molli looked. Katharine didn’t believe in seeing someone’s aura but she could have sworn that there was a golden glowing light outlining Molli’s entire body.
It looked as if the sun was shining through and casting a shadow around her body. Despite the strange change of appearance Katharine was relieved to see Molli had not been harmed in the attack.
“Molli, oh God. I am so sorry,” Katharine began to sob both from relief that her friend was alive and from fear as to what had taken place, “I am so glad you’re okay.”
“It’s okay, this isn’t your fault. I am just glad Ash killed that thing before it was too late. It really laid in on you,” Molli grabbed Katharine’s hand and held it tightly and her voice softened. Her hand was cold on Katharine’s hand and it surprised her. She wanted to ask someone to give Molli gloves or something but before she had a chance Molli began speaking again. “Kat, I know everything,”
Her words pushed the confusion about her friend’s ice-cold hands in the furthest region of her mind. She couldn’t believe that Molli had been invited in to Ash’s secrets, into Katharine’s new reality. Ash had been so adamant about no mortal finding out the truth about the angels who were cast out of Heaven for committing terrible sins.
Above all, Ash wanted no mortal to know that Katharine was a Tracker. Katharine looked at Ash with surprise in her eyes. He had given her the one thing he knew she desperately wanted, a confidant whom she’d known all her life. Someone she could talk to who wasn’t a warrior of Heaven sent to her to fight fallen angels.
“Thank you,” Katharine said to Ash.
He smiled at her respectfully but did not allow the moment to last very much longer.
“Listen Katharine there is something you need to know,” Ash began speaking but Molli grabbed his arm and gave him a begging look.
“Is everything okay?” Katharine asked growing suspicious of the looks exchanged between Ash and Molli. Ash cleared his throat and began speaking again.
“Well what did you expect, we were attacked by one of the Descended and your friend saw everything. We may have a lot of weapons but we don’t yet have anything that erases the mortal’s memories. I had no choice. Besides, you wouldn’t stop whining about how important it was to you that your best friend knew the truth” Ash said.
Molli was standing silently beside Katharine’s bed. Her hands folded across one another. She was looking longingly at Katharine, but Katharine didn’t notice she was too busy trying to figure out what came next.
Ash was being unusually quiet and respectful towards her. Usually he was giving her some snide remark or reminding her about how serious the whole being a Tracker thing was. Now he was standing behind Molli with a somber look on his face. It was strange but Katharine was too absorbed in the next step.
“If the Descended were out there and looking for me, was a hospital really the best place to take me?” Katharine asked.
“It was if I wanted to keep you alive,” Ash explained. “The whole thing happened so fast
. Before I even had the chance to get near you the Descended attacked you. There was blood everywhere. It was stronger than any Descended I’ve ever come across,”
“It was a Descended that attacked me. Right out in the open?” Katharine said with confusion. “I thought you said revealing themselves to mortals was a rule they would never break.”
“It is. Believe me I am just as surprised as you are about this. This attack was unusual for them. Up until now the Descended have not revealed themselves to any mortals in a public setting. I tried to question it before it died but I suppose I caused it too much damage and it died before it got a word out. I tell you though, something must be going on, and they must know something we don’t or why else would they expose themselves?”
“Because she is the last Tracker left,” A voice said from the hallway.
Katharine looked in the direction of the voice and saw an inspiringly handsome boy leaning up against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. The boy wore his reddish brown hair slicked back into a low ponytail, tied together with what looked like a vine.
The newcomer was dressed in white pants, so clear but not see-through, complete with a light blue sheer shirt and white leather jacket. The boy’s blue eyes pierced through the room surveying every inch of it, for what Katharine was not sure. This boy was built, far more so than Ash. The handsome boy reminded Katharine of one of the male models on a Calvin Klein ad she’d see in a magazine once. The new boy made her pulse race, which to her dismay was an impossible thing to hide attached to a heart monitor, which beat rapidly with Katharine’s heart.
“Davon? What the hell are you doing here?” Ash demanded.
Davon entered the room as if he belonged there, as if he had been there all along. The boy walked with such confidence that Katharine couldn’t help but follow his every step. Davon’s stride was instant and precise. As he moved he looked strangely at Molli, cocking his head to the side and furrowing his brows. Davon pointed to her with his index finger and looked at Ash.
Into The Light (The Fallen Shadows) Page 5
